Firefly: The Reaver Wars
by Dr. Shibui
Summary: Post Serenity. Desperate to pacify the populace the Alliace launches an all out extermination campaign against the Reavers. Predicatably it goes badly. Now the crew of Serenity is drawn into a new terrible conflict. Rated M for safety.


**Hello. I have not had the opportunity to watch many **_**Firefly**_** episodes. However, I have seen **_**Serenity**_** and I have to say it was absolutely kick-ass! I've become enamored with the characters and the setting which prompted me to make this piece. I should warn you, the beginning is pretty dark but the ending makes up for it with a Jayne moment. Enjoy!**

Firefly:

The Reaver Wars

Prologue:

Man-That-Was

_They came without warning..._

We lived in a small mining village called Little Bronco, nestled in a valley on the moon of Cloverleaf. It was quiet and peaceful, close enough to the core planets to receive regular trade and keep some semblance of order but close enough to the outer rim to avoid extended interference from the Parliament. The blue bloods and sycophants on Londinium and Sihon considered us a backwater wasteland of ignorant country-bumkins, but for me and my family - my wife, two daughters, and infant son - it was paradise.

_They came on ships, spattered and smeared with dried blood..._

I worked as an engineer in the mines. I made certain that the equipment was working properly and monitored the seismic readings to forewarn the miners when a cavern was about to collapse. Perhaps not one of the most lucrative careers, but it was an important one to my coworkers and their families, and I always made it home in time for a sit-down meal with my family - my world - read a bed-time story for the girls, tuck my son in his crib, and snuggle my wife in bed until we both fell asleep.

_Their harpoon pierced my leg..._

We all thought that eventually our small village would grow into a booming, prosperous city, the likes which could put the core planets to shame. We laughed and joked at the saloon how we we all going to strike it rich one day and buy Cloverleaf from the Alliance. It would never happen of course but it was nice to dream. I laughed and joked along with them, I didn't care. I had no need for a world.

My world was my family.

_I can still hear them scream..._

Then one day, they came.

They came without warning, like macabre harbingers of death and carnage adorned with the charred corpses of their victims.

They came upon ships smeared and spattered with blood.

They came, snarling and howling like feral animals from mutilated mouths full of rotted yellowed teeth filed into sharp points.

Their metal piercings glinted in the sunlight, contrasting with their flesh mottled and diseased by the radiation for their own vessels.

They brandished their hooks and razors as they lunged into attack, before their ships even touched down.

_I still hear them scream..._

They came to burn.

They came to slaughter.

They came to rape.

They came to feast.

_Their harpoon pierced my leg..._

Reavers.

They took Cobb first, a young miner who, when the cables broke last summer, had pulled up a whole mining crew up through the shaft with his bare hands. He screamed like a little girl as the Reavers dragged him away.

Old Mrs. Bently took one of their harpoons through the stomach. The monsters didn't bother taking he aboard and started eating her where she lay bleeding.

Sheriff Conrad tried to take a stand with a posse of armed menfolk in hopes of holding them off. Perhaps even repulsing them. But we all knew that Reavers couldn't be driven back. Your only hope was kill every last one or run. They shot a volley into the oncoming raiders. Several of them fell, but more came out of the ships, ten to replace every one that fell. In a matter of minutes they were overwhelmed and their screams echoed throughout the valley.

They only escape was the spaceport over a mile out of Little Bronco.

I ran to my house.

I had to get my family out of there.

My daughters stared at me with saucer eyes as they do whenever they wake form a bad dream. They looked at me as though waiting for me to tell them that it was going to be okay. That it wasn't real. I looked at my wife, who was trying her best to calm our wailing son, for answers. But I only saw that same primal fear in her eyes that threatened to consume me from within.

"We need to get to the spaceport," I said, trying to keep from breaking down into tears myself. "Leave everything behind. All that matters is that we get out of here."

There were no arguments.

No complaints.

No protests.

_I still hear them scream..._

The girls instinctively knew that the danger far outweighed any sort of materiel possessions they left behind. We piled into the landspeeder. It coughed and spluttered in protest catching the attention of a pair of passing Reavers.

They came snarling, salivating for fresh human fleshmeat.

They were only twelve feet away...

My son is crying.

Nine feet...

My wife is praying.

Five feet...

My daughters are screaming.

Two feet...

I was cursing as the speeder's engine continued to rebel against me, until at last it roared to life. I steered it into a one-eighty, slamming into our attackers and pinning them to the side of the house. They growled their defiance, blood streaming from their mutilated mouths, their auger eyes glaring at us balefully, before they slumped forward and died.

My daughters were sobbing openly now, clinging to my wife as she cradled our son in her arms. I navigated the speeder out of town and into the open wilderness. One mile of scrub and grass between us and safety as Little Bronco burned behind us.

Then we heard it. My daughters wailed in despair as the blood-stained ship came into view behind us. They were chasing us. They slaughtered an entire village and still their bloodlust went unsated. I willed the speeder to go faster. Prayed to God, Buddha, and anyone else who would listen that we would escape. That my family would be safe.

_My world..._

I cried out as a harpoon pierced my leg. Then it began to retract, taking me with it. The last thing I saw before I blacked out were my wife and the girls reaching out to me with out stretch hands...

_I still hear them scream..._

When I opened my eyes I immediately wished I was dead.

My wrists and ankles were bound together, the wound in my leg was throbbing. I was surrounded by four Reavers leering down at me. One of them bent down and leaned close to my face. He had an empty socket when his left-eye should have been. His breath smelled of decayed flesh and rotten teeth. A razor flashed before my eyes and I winced as he cut into my cheek.

He started chuckling and the others joined in. Perhaps he was the leader of the raiding party. Two of them dragged me to my feet and held my head. I knew the stories of Reaver attacks and what they did to their victims. Torture, rape, and cannibalism - not necessarily in that order - were all that awaited their unfortunate captives. I steeled myself, praying that I would be dead by the time they began eating.

Then one-eye made a gesture and the remaining Reaver punched a control panel that opened a door. Five more Reavers entered, but not before pushing my wife and daughters through. They were ghostly pale and very much afraid. But they were alive.

The girls sobbed when they saw me, crying "Daddy!"

I tried to go to them but my captors held me fast, holding my head so that my face looked forward.

I didn't understand what they were doing and why we were all still alive, but when I saw one-eye grinning, I knew. Oh God! It became so horribly clear to me I screamed and struggled against my captors and my bonds.

Sometime Reavers purposely left someone alive on their raiding. No one quite understood why but one thing was certain, the survivor was never the same again. That is because the Reavers forced them to watch them torture and mutilate their other victims. And now I knew, with absolute terrifying certainty, that this was what these monsters intended for me.

They roughly dragged my wife towards the center of the room. She screamed my name as they tore her dress to shreds then began their work.

I watched as they raked their knives over her flesh, as they violated her over and over again, as they finally slit her stomach open and began to feast on her entrails. She was still alive and screaming while they were eating her.

I screamed and raged and wept and begged, thrashing against my restraints and the strong Reaver arms that held me fast, but one-eye continued to stare at me and grin until at last my wife fell silent and they dragged her ruined corpse away.

They did the same to both my daughters. They screamed for me to make them stop, begged me to save them as their blood pooled around them to mingle with that of their mother. Soon they too fell silent and were dragged away.

At last they carried my son. Squirming within the blanket my wife had wrapped him in and keening and wailing in the arms of a Reaver who handed him over to one-eye.

The leader of the raiders, cradled my son for a moment or two, shushing him in an almost paternal way. Then he looked at me and that grin - that damnable grin spread across his face once again.

Then he gripped my baby's neck in his hands and twisted.

My sons's cries ceased with a quick audible snap.

Then one-eye carelessly tossed his tiny broken body to his shipmates which they promptly tore apart. I screamed and cried and never stopped, even as they shoved my off their ship onto some outer rim world.

Even as my tears ran dry.

_I still hear their screams..._

I wandered that god-forsaken world. My leg eventually healed, though the wound had become infected and left me with a limp. The cut on my cheek from one-eye's razor had adorned my face with a puffy, livid scar.

People shunned me for the most part. They probably knew what I was - a Reaver survivor, driven to madness by the horror and carnage I had seen. Every night I see my wife and children being butchered before my eyes all over again.

I eventually stopped sleeping altogether.

_I still hear them scream..._

I hunted in the wilderness, poaching rabbits and anything else I could get my hands on. I didn't even bother to cook them. Often I didn't even bother to kill them before I began eating them. I came across few humans, though I was once accosted by a pair of drifters.

Likely thought a madman like me made for an easy target.

I proved them wrong As I swiftly took hold of one's arm as he had began to draw and using his own gun to kill his companion. The I disarmed him. Bereft of his weapon, he began pleading for his life. I noticed that his companion carried a Bowie knife. I retrieved it from his corpse and his friend offered it to me as a sign of good faith. I used ti to gut him and went on my way.

Many similar incidents like that one followed. I became adept with the knife and killing with it. Eventually I began drawing it out, prolonging my victims' suffering, making them scream and cry like my wife and daughters did.

_I still hear them scream..._

One day, as I was passing by on the outskirts of a village, they came.

They came without warning, like macabre harbingers of death and carnage adorned with the charred corpses of their victims.

They came upon ships smeared and spattered with blood.

They came, snarling and howling like feral animals from mutilated mouths full of rotted yellowed teeth filed into sharp points.

Their metal piercings glinted in the sunlight, contrasting with their flesh mottled and diseased by the radiation for their own vessels.

They brandished their hooks and razors as they lunged into attack, before their ships even touched down.

_I still hear them scream..._

They came to burn.

They came to slaughter.

They came to rape.

They came to feast.

_Their harpoon pierced my leg..._

Reavers.

I recognized the ships as the same one that massacred Little Bronco.

I ran toward the town as its buildings were lit ablaze. I ran snarling and foaming toward the sounds of screaming.

_I still hear them scream..._

By the time I reached the town, the fires had died, leaving smoldering ruin and the screaming had faded and the street was littered with corpses. But the Reavers were still there, as though they were waiting for me.

They didn't approach, but they remained in a crouched position as though aching to lung at me and tear me to pieces. And there, in the midst of them, was one-eye himself, grinning at me in recognition.

I pointed my knife at him and he drew his razor.

With an animal howl I lunged at him and he dashed forward to meet me.

_My wife and I on our wedding day..._

He parried my knife and slashed at my chest.

_The day my first daughter was born..._

The wound was shallow and I went for his throat.

_My two girls playing in the yard as my wife, heavy with pregnancy, hung out the laundry to dry..._

One-eye snarled as he blocked the flow of blood from the gash in his throat, and lunged for me again.

_My wife cradling our son in her arms as he nursed..._

I took his razor in the arm as I plunged my knife in his chest.

_My family..._

_My world..._

_I still hear them scream..._

The Reaver stood staring at the hilt protruding from his chest in disbelief for a moment or two. Then he looked at me with his single eye and chuckled before gurgling and falling into his knees and finally collapsing forward face-first into the dirt.

I clutched the wound in my arm and looked around at the other Reavers, expecting them to come and avenge their fallen leader.

Instead they pumped their fists into the air and roared as one. Then they began chanting, "Scar! Scar! Scar!"

Two came forward, turned one-eye over on his back, yanked the knife out of his chest and presented it to me reverently, eyeing me expectantly. I looked around at the chanting mob, then back at the proffered knife.

Then I realized what had happened.

What I had become.

I took the knife and I sliced one-eye open, removing his heart. The chanting fell silent, and a pregnant hush fell over the assemblage.

Then I raised the heart to my face and began to eat it.

A cheer rang out through the crowd as they watched me feast upon my fallen adversary. When I had finished I left to rest to the others which they happily devoured as I entered the ship. My ship.

They say that those the Reavers leave behind go mad like them and become second-generation Reavers.

I suppose, for me at least, that's true.

I now command raiding parties aboard ships smeared and spattered with blood.

Gone is the once-man who had family and friends. Gone was the madman who wandered the wastelands fighting for his life. He is gone. I had killed him. His name and face forgotten. There is only me.

I am what's left.

Perhaps, I'm all there ever was.

I am the Reaver.

Scar.

We come, snarling and howling like feral animals from mutilated mouths full of rotted yellowed teeth filed into sharp points.

Our metal piercings glint in the sunlight, contrasting with our flesh mottled and diseased by the radiation for our own vessels.

We brandished our hooks and razors as we lunge into attack, before our ships even touch down.

We come to burn.

We come to slaughter.

We come to rape.

We come to feast.

_I still hear them scream..._

We are Reavers.

- - -

River Tam awoke screaming aboard _Serenity_ in her habitual sleeping place in the loading dock. Simon was the first to reach her, followed close behind by Malcolm and Zoe - both brandishing firearms - as well as Kaylee and Inara.

"River?" asked Simon approaching cautiously, recalling the occasion that his sister floored him the last time he had tried to pacify her.

"I still hear them scream," breathed River, hugging her legs to her chest. "I still hear them scream. I still hear them scream. I still hear them scream."

Simon knelt down next to her and put a comforting arm around his sister's shoulders.

"What's wrong with her?" asked Zoe, lowering her weapon.

"She's not going to..." prompted Mal, also lowering his gun. "You know." then he twirled a finger by his ear whistling prompting a sigh from Inara.

"Mal!" scolded Kaylee, glaring daggers at her captain/surrogate elder brother, before turning a tender smile towards Simon. "Bring her to the kitchen. I'll make some tea."

Simon nodded and carefully guided River to her feet and led her out of the lading dock as she muttered, "They come to burn...they come to slaughter...they come to rape...they come to feast.."

Zoe turned to Mal raising an inquiring eyebrow, before asking him. "What do you think?"

Mal shoved his gun into his holster and shrugged, "Could just me a nightmare."

"Is it ever 'just a nightmare' with River?"

"Nope," answered the _Serenity's_ captain gruffly. "But a man can dream."

"By the sound of it," whispered Inara. "Something terrible is coming."

"What else is new?" muttered Mal.

Just then Jayne came lurching in, yawning and scratching himself. "The hell's all the screaming about?" he demanded. "Psycho-girl PMSing again?"

Malcolm, Zoe, and Inara stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment, prompting the mercenary to raise his eyebrows.

"What?"

"You wear your tuque to bed?" asked Mal.

Zoe and Inara snickered as the legendary Hero of Canton turned beet-red with embarrassment.

**Oh, Jayne! You're so clueless and insensitive, but that's why we love you! Anyway, I hope I portrayed the characters adequately. Keep in mind I really have only the movie and the internet (that you wikipedia!) to go by, but I accept and welcome all constructive criticisms. I'm also uncertain about the rating. **

**While the beginning is most assuredly dark I didn't really go into raw detail (just enough to make my audience wince I think) and I also have no intention of making the rest of the story as dark, but I'll leave it up to you, if you feel that it's too traumatic I'll keep the rating as it is, if not, I'll bump it down to T. As always R/R plz! Shibui out!**


End file.
